At Corpus Christi Catholic Primary School, our approach to Mathematics is deeply rooted in our mission of Loving to learn, learning to love, whilst living together in Christ. We aim to nurture confident, curious learners who are fluent in key numeracy skills and able to apply their understanding to a wide range of problem-solving situations. Through a Mastery Approach, we ensure that children not only learn mathematical procedures but also develop a deep conceptual understanding, enabling them to reason, articulate their thinking, and make connections across the curriculum. This inclusive pedagogy reflects the British Value of individual liberty, as all children are given equal access to the curriculum without group labels or limitations.

Our Maths lessons are structured to promote fluency, reasoning, and problem-solving. Each session begins with a fluency task to activate prior knowledge and build confidence. Children engage in guided and independent tasks using concrete, pictorial, and abstract representations, supported by adaptive teaching strategies and formative assessment techniques. Mixed-ability groupings and flexible adult deployment ensure that every child receives the support or challenge they need. We encourage pupils to discuss their thinking openly, fostering mutual respect and valuing the process of learning as much as the outcome. Catholic Social Teaching principles such as participation, subsidiarity, and working for the common good underpin our approach, ensuring that all learners are supported to thrive.

We encourage families to engage with their child’s progress through accessible online platforms such as Times Tables Rockstars, Mathletics, and Numbots, which children can use at home to reinforce key skills. Weekly activities like Big Maths Beat That and regular times tables practice help build fluency and confidence, while arithmetic sessions embedded throughout the school day ensure that core skills are continually revisited. By promoting consistent practice at home and school, we strengthen the partnership between families and educators, helping children to develop a secure foundation in Maths.

Preparing children for the next step in their education and for using Maths in the real world is central to our vision. We ensure that pupils are equipped with transferable skills such as logical reasoning, problem-solving, and resilience—skills that are essential not only for secondary education but also for everyday life. By linking Maths to real-world contexts and other curriculum areas, we help children see its relevance and application beyond the classroom. Whether budgeting, measuring, interpreting data, or understanding patterns, our pupils learn to appreciate the value of Maths in making informed decisions and contributing positively to society.

Ultimately, our Maths curriculum reflects our commitment to holistic education, where children are nurtured academically, spiritually, and socially. By embedding British Values and Catholic Social Teaching into our pedagogy, we ensure that our pupils grow into confident, capable individuals who live and learn together in Christ.

Deuteronomy 4:2 – Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the Lord your God that I give you.

Our intent

At Corpus Christi Catholic Primary School, we want children to be fluent in the key numeracy skills of Maths and be able to apply these skills to a range of problem solving situations. We want pupils to know the ‘why’ in Maths and we want them to be able to have a deep understanding of Mathematical methods so that they can pull it apart, reason and apply. To this end we follow a maths mastery approach to learning and teaching. We strive to achieve this by allowing opportunities for all to reach the same outcome; displaying and using relevant vocabulary; focusing on delivering high quality provision through resources and key questioning and by using concrete resources for children to manipulate, before moving onto using pictorial representations and writing the abstract. We begin each lesson with a range of arithmetic questions to enhance fluency of mathematical basic skills and regularly provide children with a variety of reasoning and problem solving activities 

At Corpus Christi we link Mathematical learning cross-curricular (where possible) to give our children opportunity to extend their learning beyond the classroom. We provide children with opportunities to discuss their thinking without worrying about the correct answer which enables deepen thinking.

Implementation.

At Corpus Christi we follow the Mastery approach to the teaching of Mathematics. Our teachers adopt strategies to ensure all children access the whole curriculum. We strive to ensure that all teachers and children emphasise number facts, precise mathematical language and full sentences. Our teachers plan maths lessons by mapping key mathematical concepts in a topic, then breaking them down into small steps that aim develop children’s fluency and reasoning together. 

Impact on children’s learning of maths. 

Our children accept the ‘challenge of mathematics’ because they are encouraged by the belief that everyone can succeed through effort. They show a high level of positivity, engagement, enjoyment and enthusiasm for mathematics. Key Stage 1 children  ‘feeling their brain work’ in lessons and  Key Stage 2 children enjoy seeing mathematics that relates to real-life situations and have expressed that mathematical reasoning can be challenging, but that it is valuable. Our children at Corpus Christi demonstrate their growing understanding of mathematics through this reasoning and they have a willingness to explain their mathematical strategies. Thanks to our school’s approach to BLP our children are resilient and thoughtful about their mathematical learning and attitude to challenges. As a result of our use of the mastery approach, our children are able represent their mathematical reasoning verbally and articulate mathematical statements, including generalisations. This widens access to, and enjoyment of, the maths curriculum by children with EAL or lower levels of literacy.

curriculum overviews

EYFS Skills Progression